


Shiloh

by FinAmour



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Past Lives, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Ghosts, Happy Ending, M/M, Mediums, Past Lives, References to Homophobia, Reincarnation, Supernatural Elements, Talking To Dead People, eternal love, life after death, tis the season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 21:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16146320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FinAmour/pseuds/FinAmour
Summary: He huffs a breathy laugh as he exhales, a ring of smoke falling from his slightly-parted lips. “I’m a ghost,” he says without irony. “What else am I to do with my spare time?” He leans forward in his chair, narrowing his eyes at me. “Which is, to say—all of my time.”A shiver erupts throughout my body, starting in my spine and settling into the pit of my stomach. I know that he knows better. I know I ought to be angry with him. I also know that I’m not angry at all.“Couldn’t you just...rearrange my books and drag heavy objects across the top floor, like all the other ones do?”He rolls his eyes, wrapping his lips around the filter of his cigarette. Another inhalation. Another exhalation.I stare.“Boring.”





	Shiloh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [unicornpoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Шайлох (Shiloh)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17271416) by [PulpFiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PulpFiction/pseuds/PulpFiction)



> _“The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long / The winter looked the same, as if it never had gone / And through an open window where no curtain hung / I saw you, I saw you...”_  
>  -Jefferson Airplane, “Comin’ Back to Me”

In late January of 1969—the first time Shiloh comes to see me—central London is still blanketed in the icy dead of Winter. But on that particular night, the air is even more bitter than usual, and it’s even more still, and it’s even quieter than a prayer.

As I begin to awaken at half-midnight, the temperature in my bedroom plummets. That’s how I usually know when there’s a Visitor.

He’s sitting next to my bed, unmoving, gazing back at me from the rocking chair where Margot used to knit. His skin is paler than the moonlight haze drifting in through the frosted window; his heavy-lidded eyes are paler still. Dark, knotted curls cascade down his face, falling onto cheekbones sharper than a jackknife. An unlit cigarette hangs limp from his full, cordiform lips.

His expression bears the type of ennui that only seems to come from being trapped as a Visitor for an untold amount of time.

“Can’t seem to find my matches,” he informs me, his voice wholly unperturbed.

He is almost strange-looking enough to be considered beautiful. I struggle for another word to describe his unconventional appearance, but in my sleepy state, I fail. So instead, I reach into the drawer of the opposite nightstand. I pull out a book of matches and strike one.

“Here,” I offer. “Use mine.”

*** 

I can’t remember a time that they weren’t with me. The Visitors, that is.

Their presence is something I’ve never really questioned. I’ve simply learned to accept the inevitability of it; like the rising and the setting of the sun; like the leaves returning to green after Winter’s end; like the violent and deadly wars and battles continually fought by the living.

When I joined the Army in 1958, I was eighteen years old. I married Margot the year after that.

We were married for three years before I told her about the Visitors.

I’d been honourably discharged from the Army due to a gunshot wound to the shoulder, and, being home all of the time, it had become too difficult for me to hide it—especially when I’d leave our bedroom every night to be alone.

She had questions. I told her the truth. She didn’t believe me. So we didn’t talk about it anymore.

She passed away of ovarian cancer in 1967.

Even as a doctor, I couldn’t help her.

I suppose death is just something that’s always surrounded me.

I’m aware of how mad this all makes me sound. Truth is, I probably am mad. Truth is, I don’t care anymore. I never had a choice in the matter, anyway.

And besides, people are always going to talk.

Because that’s what people do. They talk. But not only while they’re alive. Some of the ones who are dead talk, too.

***

“Doctor Jacob Henry Walker,” Shiloh says to me, his voice a dark velvet. “Twenty-nine years old. Widower, Army Veteran, and general practitioner.” He wraps two languid fingers around his cigarette and elegantly inhales, examining my features before meeting my eyes with his pale, pale, pale ones. He exhales.

“Yeah.” I pull my duvet closer, shifting my body underneath. “How’d you know all that?”

“Simple.” He takes another drag of his cigarette, flicking the ashes into an empty beer bottle on my floor. “I look through your belongings while you’re away. I sometimes look through them while you’re not away, too.”

He doesn’t blink. Neither do I.

“That’s awfully presumptuous of you to do.”

He huffs a breathy laugh as he exhales, a ring of smoke falling from his slightly-parted lips. “I’m a ghost,” he says without irony. “What _else_ am I to do with my spare time?” He leans forward in his chair, narrowing his eyes at me. “Which is, to say—all of my time.”

A shiver erupts throughout my body, starting in my spine and settling into the pit of my stomach. I know that he knows better. I know I ought to be angry with him. I also know that I’m not angry at all.

“Couldn’t you just...rearrange my books and drag heavy objects across the top floor, like all the other ones do?” 

He rolls his eyes, wrapping his lips around the filter of his cigarette. Another inhalation. Another exhalation.

I stare.

“Boring.”

He puts the cigarette out, not breaking eye contact with me; his eyes burning  into mine the way I’d imagine the tobacco ash burning my lungs.

“How long have you been here?” I ask, shivering again. “That is, to say—how long have you been dead?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I don’t have the ability to conceptualise your version of time.”

“Right. So…” I bite my bottom lip lightly. “Do you...remember anything about... how you got here?”

“No,” he says with a furrow of his brow. “And I don’t like not knowing.”

“It takes a bit of time, but you’ll get there,” I reassure him. Inexplicably, I feel a surge of protectiveness over him. I try not to think about it too much.

He continues to hold my gaze for a few silent moments, and he leans back in the chair, shifting his eyes and staring blankly at my wall.

“I think I remember my name,” he says slowly. “It’s Shiloh.”

“Shiloh,” I repeat. The name feels natural on my tongue.

Like home.

***

When I was a child, my grandmother used to visit me every morning in our garden. She’d plant daisies and marigolds and daffodils, and tell me stories of her adventurous past.

She would talk about catching firebugs in the meadows of the Yunju temples when she was just a little girl; about dancing the pavane in the royal courts of Avignon. She’d tell me about carving hieroglyphs into the pyramids of Luxor; about the hymns she used to sing in Melrose Abbey.

And often, she would sing to me as well:

_“Weißt du, wie viel Sternlein stehen_  
_an dem blauen Himmelszelt?_  
_Weißt du, wie viel Wolken gehen_  
_weithin über alle Welt?”_

She came to see me every single morning, right at the break of dawn, until the day I turned six years old.

Long after, I learned that she had actually passed away shortly before I turned four.

*** 

Shiloh comes to visit me the next night. And the night after that, and the night after that, and for many nights thereafter.

He smokes cigarettes from the rocking chair, watching me with his pale eyes, and I watch him back.

We talk, of course. We talk a lot. In fact, despite our obvious differences, it seems we are never lacking in things to say. Our conversations often begin at midnight and bleed effortlessly into the early hours of the morning.

In the beginning, I share my stories. About the war, about my ghosts, both literal and figurative.

“You’ve always known?” He asks one Tuesday. “That you could talk to the dead?”

“I’m not sure about always,” I say. “But I can’t remember a time when I didn’t.”

“And this hasn’t been achieved by others you know?”

“If it has, I’m not aware. Though it’s not exactly something I often share. Perhaps people just don’t talk about it. Maybe I’m not that special.”

“You _are_ special,” he insists without hesitation. “Undoubtedly. You are. I don’t know, or remember many things, but of this, I am absolutely certain.”

The sincerity of his comment is unexpected. I smile at him, and he smiles back, and there is nothing else but a feeling in my chest: a glowing warmth that threatens to kindle itself and spread if I don’t keep it under control.

I fall asleep smiling that night; and for many nights afterwards as well.

***

Slowly, his memories begin to return.

One Monday, he has a revelation: “I seem to remember being surrounded by many, many corpses.”

“Oh,” I respond hesitantly. “You mean… just before you died?”

“No. I mean, always. I think it was part of my occupation.”

“Hm. Perhaps you were a soldier, as well?”

“I believe they were already dead when they came to me,” he muses. “I find it far more likely that I was examining them.”

“Perhaps you worked at a morgue,” I offer.

“Mm. Perhaps.”

“I imagine you and I probably knew a lot of the same corpses, then,” I quip.

He coughs, and a puff of smoke comes out, and as it does, I realise he’s actually laughing. It’s the first time I’ve seen him do so.

“Doctor,” he says. “How terrible are you at your job, exactly, if you know that many dead people?”

I feel my own lips forming into a smile. “I wasn’t talking about my career. Besides, being dead doesn’t seem so bad,” I say, raising my eyebrows at him pointedly.

“It was hideously boring at first,” he says, pursing his lips. “But I do admit, it has been better as of late.”

He hangs his head, and his hair falls into his face. Alarmingly, I find myself wondering what it might be like to brush it away for him, to card my fingers through his curls.

And I can feel the now-familiar shiver up and down my spine, settling in the pit of my stomach.

“Yeah,” I agree.

Because even though I’m very much alive compared to him, I feel the exact same way he does.

And then I wonder, too—how alive was I, really, before I knew Shiloh?

***

In the summer of 1950, when I was ten years old, my father passed away, and my mother and sister and I moved into a tiny flat in West Somerset.

The Visitors began to come by almost immediately.

There were all sorts—men, women, children. They’d always stop in after dark, and always after my mother had fallen asleep. They were kind and non-threatening—and I was always happy when they’d visit.

I was never afraid.

The first thing I usually noticed about them was what they were wearing. They always seemed to dress so much differently from the others around me. Full robes. Ballroom gowns. Suits with long coattails. Even the types of clothes I’d seen in my childhood books and Fairytales.

I’d just assumed they were always on their way to some sort of fancy dress party, and the thought of that made me happy as well.

When I told my mum about the Visitors, she called the police and changed the locks on the doors.

It terrified my mother. So eventually, I learned to stop talking about them.

Thankfully, they never stopped coming to see me.

***

“You were in some of my past lives,” Shiloh says on a Sunday in early March. His eyes wander; he suddenly seems so timid. “Actually…” he pauses. “You were in all of them.”

“I was? You… You’re sure it’s me?”

“Yes,” he says. “I’m positive.”

“Oh.” I’m not quite sure what to say about that. I want to ask so many things, but only one question comes to mind. “Am I… nice?”

“You’re always a good man. Always kind, always wise. And always very brave.”

“Well, that’s good to hear.”

“Yes,” he says quietly, fidgeting in the rocking chair. And he seems to be done talking. I don’t ask him for any more, although I’m burning with curiosity, and with the desire to reach out and take his hand into mine.

*** 

“What’s the craziest thing that ever happened to you in a past life?” I ask Shiloh one Sunday.

He presses his lips together in thought. “Once, I was a pirate, and—”

“You’re lying.”

He frowns. “No.”

I laugh. “Fine, then. Go on.”

He rolls his eyes before continuing. “Once, I was a pirate, and our ship encountered a heavy thunderstorm. I woke up alone on an island the following day.”

I laugh again, this time it’s loud, and I can feel my entire body shaking as I do. “You…actually washed up on a desert island?” I ask. “And you were all alone?”

“Yes,” he says. “Well, I was at first. It wasn’t long before I was joined by a royal officer who had been washed up in a similar manner. A proper man, and when he found out I was a pirate, he tried to hide, to stay away from me as much as possible. But eventually he gave in, once he learned he needed me in order to survive.”

“That’s—lovely. I think?”

He smiles at me, and I can feel the smile in my gut. “It was quite cold one night, and I’d built a fire, and he joined me there. We fell asleep in one another’s arms.”

“Oh.”

“And then we fell asleep in one another’s arms every night after that, until we were finally rescued by a royal fleet. Two hundred twenty-one days after he’d arrived.”

I feel the familiar warmth returning to my chest. “Were you two...I mean, did you ever see one another again?”

He laughs, but his voice is bittersweet now. “Of course not,” he says. “He was married.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“And I was a pirate.”

“Well, yes.”

He sighs deeply and waits a few moments before continuing. He nods towards a framed photograph hanging on my wall. “You were married in this life,” he says. “Margot, was it?”

I lower my head. “Yes. She died two years ago. Ovarian cancer.”

“She had another lover,” Shiloh says. “A few, in fact.”

The words burn, but they aren’t exactly news. “Yeah. You read her stuff too, then?”

“Of course,” he says. “She’s got diaries and letters. Her affairs were quite entertaining, actually.”

“Go to Hell,” I say without malice.

“I’m sure if I were going to Hell, I’d be there by now,” he jokes. “Though perhaps I was simply put here en route to torture you.”

I’m not as angry with him as I should be.

I miss Margot. I do. We both made mistakes. But I loved her nonetheless.

She never made me smile the way Shiloh does.

I decide it’s best not to talk about it. 

***

I never used the word “ghost” until I was twelve years old. My mother had remarried, and we’d moved again—this time into a gigantic flat in central London.

That’s when I met Mrs. Hawkins, a kind, elderly Visitor. She would always come to our flat at precisely eleven o’clock. She would pick up my sister’s dirty laundry from the floor, muttering inanities the entire time, and then she’d simply turn around and leave.

I always found this to be hilarious. My sister did not.

She thought I was hiding her clothes, and she’d yell at me for doing so. She wouldn’t believe me when I’d say it wasn’t me.

So one night after Mrs. Hawkins had thrown some socks into the laundry hamper, I removed them, and placed them back to their original place on the floor.

“Good Lord, why would you _do_ such a thing?” Mrs. Hawkins yelled from the darkened corner of the room.

“Sorry,” I said with a start, scrambling over to pick them up. “It’s just, my sister keeps yelling at me—“

“You!” Mrs. Hawkins stepped forward into the dull light, her eyes wide in disbelief. “You can actually _hear_ what I’m saying?”

“Yeah,” I replied, tentatively looking her in the eye. “‘Course I can hear you.”

She continued to stare back at me, the lines around her mouth becoming more pronounced as her jaw hung open in shock. “You have the ability to communicate with ghosts?” 

Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I slowly shrugged, tilting my head bashfully to one side. “Is that what _you_ are?”

“Yes.”

“Then, yeah. I suppose I do.”

“Ah. Good. Then listen,” she continued sternly, though her expression remained good-natured. “You tell that sister of yours to clean up after herself, you hear?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. I’ll let her know.”

“Very well,” she said, clicking her tongue chidingly against the roof of her mouth. “I’m a ghost, after all; I’m not your housekeeper.”

***

“We always know one another,” Shiloh says on a Thursday. “Sometimes we merely pass one another by; sometimes our relationship is much more complex. But we are always in it together.”

“Not quite true,” I say. “We weren’t together for this one.”

“No,” he says. “But we are now.”

“Oh,” I exhale. “So you—“ The all-familiar shiver runs through my spine.

“I think we’re meant to know one another,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper. “And for whatever reason, that failed to happen in this life, so—“

“So here you are.”

“So here I am.”

I stare back at him, silently, my heart stirring again, and try to determine the gravity of it all.

“There’s one more thing,” he says softly. “I wasn’t sure whether to tell you, but…”

“I want to know,” I say with an unexpected urgency. “I want to know it all.”

“In most of our lives together,” he says to me, almost inaudible. “You and I are in love.”

I can feel my heart stop. I gaze at him for what feels like hours, and I feel as though my deepest, darkest secret has been ripped from my mouth.

I clear my throat, attempting to say something—anything—to break the silence. “You and I were in love—“ I begin. “Were you and I always both—“

“Biologically male?” He raises his eyebrows. “Yes.”

I can’t think of anything good to say. I can’t. So I say something without thinking. Something not good:

“I’m not gay.”

“I know,” he says with a slight coolness in his demeanor. “You always feel the need to inform me of that.”

“When? When have I told you _that?”_

_“_ Before. In our other lives.”

My heart is thundering in my ears; my throat is dry. Why is this so hard?

“Not that there’s a problem with it,” I say, doing my best to backtrack. “It’s all fine.”

“I know it’s fine,” he says. “But it isn’t fine, usually, as far as… society is concerned.”

“Right,” I say, and a sudden unbearable sadness overcomes me. “I suppose you’re right. So we had to keep it secret, then?”

“Yes. Almost always.”

We continue to stare at one another for a tad too long. My heart beats uncomfortably fast.

“Shiloh,” I whisper. I’m still not sure what words are going to come from me next.

“It’s alright, Jacob,” he says in a hushed tone. “There’s nothing for you to worry about in _this_ life, you know. I’m already gone.” He flashes me a tiny, sad smile.

It doesn’t make me feel better. Not at all. In fact, the sadness only swells.

And as I stare at him, admiring his beauty, wishing that I could feel how his lips taste underneath mine, it really hits me—what it means. How it goes.

It’s not what I’d thought, that first night he’d come to me, and it’s definitely not something I’d have been prepared to know.

It’s not a terrible thing, I suppose. Just extremely inconvenient.

He is a ghost, after all.

“I think I should probably sleep,” I say finally.

“Of course,” he responds slowly. “Goodnight.”

And that night, for the first time in many weeks, the smile I’ve grown accustomed to falling asleep with is gone.

***

Things after that effortlessly return to normal, as though we had never spoken of it. He tells me entertaining stories of his lives, and he leaves out all the parts where we’re in love.

I’m not sure if I prefer it that way.

We smile together, regardless. We laugh, we grow ever closer, and he remains the most important thing in my life.

Can he say that about me? Am I the most important thing in his death?

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, but I know I’ve never been as happy as I am when he’s around.

So I don’t ask any more questions, and I continue to fall asleep with a smile on my lips, and him by my side.

***

“You’re almost always a doctor,” Shiloh says one Monday in late Spring. “In our other lives, I mean. And almost always a military veteran, as well.”

“Am I always on the winning side?” I ask.

“Not always,” he replies, staring at my feet with his pale, pale eyes. “But you’re always on the side of the angels.”

“Well,” I say. I want to hold him. “I suppose that’s just life.”

***

One night in June, it finally comes to an end.

“I’m going to be moving on soon,” he says, looking across the room at me, his eyes sadder than I’d ever seen them. “Probably before sunrise.”

An invisible knife twists in my heart. Because I believe him. Still, I say: “Why do you think so?”

“I don’t understand it fully,” he says. “I just know.”

I swallow. “That’s...well, that’s unfortunate.”

He pauses for a few moments, then nods. “Yes.”

The silence stretches for several more seconds as I try to speak past the enormous lump forming in my throat. “Should have known this would happen eventually, I suppose.”

“Yes,” he nods again. “I sort of figured I’d be around a bit longer, though. I didn’t think—I didn’t think I’d be leaving without you.”

The deep glowing feeling stirs again in my chest, the shiver cascading down my spine. “Why would you think that?” I ask.

“I’m here because of _you,”_ he replies simply. “I’m tethered to you, Jacob.”

“Tethered to me?” I frown. “What do you mean?”

“In every life,” he says. “Every universe, every plane, every time period,” he says. “There is me, and there is you. For whatever reason, we didn’t meet in this life, which is why I am here. So, it makes no sense for me to move on to the next life without you.”

He freezes, and I realise that his voice is trembling. “I’d just... hoped we’d have more time.”

Of course, I’d hoped for more time as well. But it hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps he felt the same.

“I thought time didn’t mean anything to you,” I utter, in an effort to break the tension.

“It didn’t used to,” he admits. “But then again, few things seem to mean very much without you.”

And in that moment, I know more than anything that he’s telling the truth.

In that moment, I wish more than anything that I could just touch him.

I know I can’t. I try anyway, reaching up to brush a curl from the side of his face. I stretch my fingers toward his open hand, trying to take it into my own.

It doesn’t work.

His eyes flutter closed and he shivers, sharply inhaling with a deep, deep sadness.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and my eyes are beginning to burn.

“What have you got to apologise for?” he asks.

“I’m sorry that in this life, I was never able to hold you.”

“Jacob,” he says, exhaling shakily. “I know you aren’t—I know you aren’t interested in, but—”

“Shiloh,” I begin, moving as close to him as I possibly can. If he had a breath, I’d have felt it warm against my cheeks.

“Listen to me,” I say. “As much as I know it’s ridiculous, I can’t seem to stop thinking about you. And I don’t think I want to stop it. The way I feel with you, it’s… it’s something I’ve been looking for my entire life, and fate has finally allowed me to find it. And Christ, you’re a bloody _ghost_.”

He laughs. “Fate can be rather hilarious at times.”

I laugh, too, and I wish again that I could take his hand.

“So fuck what I’m interested in,” I say. “I’m in love with _you.”_

“Yeah,” he says, his expression bittersweet. “That’s something you always learn, eventually.”

I sigh. “I only wish I’d known you sooner. Pretty pointless to say these things now, I suppose.”

“No,” he says. “It isn’t. Because at least I got to hear you say it. I… I don’t always get to hear you say it, you know.”

“Oh,” I say, lowering my head. “Then perhaps I can tell you again and again, while I still have time. You know, to make up for it.”

He smiles weakly. “You haven’t even heard me say it back.”

“Would you like to say it back?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“You’d better hurry, then.”

He blinks. And that’s when I learn that ghosts have the ability to cry, just as they do when they’re alive.

“Say it,” I whisper. “Say it now.”

“I love you,” he breathes. “I always do. I always will.” 

And there is nothing for me left to say, except:

”I love you.” My eyelids are impossibly heavy. “I love you, I love you.”

“When you wake up, I’ll be gone,” he says. “But we will meet again. I promise.”

I know.

It isn’t long before I drift off to sleep.

***

I wake up the next morning, and he’s not there.

My heart feels as though it’s been completely wrung out.

I drag myself out of bed, moving through my flat, going through the motions as if I were a puppet. The world has lost its colour. Nothing seems to matter now that he’s gone.

I step into a taxicab to ride to work.

And that’s when I see him again.

I’d never expected it to be so soon.

Time stops. Means nothing. Nothing means anything. Nothing but him, sitting in the seat next to me.

“Shiloh,” I gasp. “I thought you’d—“

“In approximately three seconds,” he interrupts, “This taxicab is going to be struck by a drunk driver, and you will die.”

“What?!” I ask. “I—”

“It’s going to be alright,” he says. “I’m here. We’re here. Together. Don’t be afraid.”

He reaches out and takes my hand, lacing his delicate fingers through mine.

I smile back at him. 

“I’m not.”

And then there’s a crash.

Shattering glass.

I don’t feel the pain for long.

Or perhaps I do. But it’s worth the wound. In fact, it’s worth many more.

Because now, I’m at the kerb, staring at myself from across the street, and I can still feel his hand in mine.

I turn to look up into his eyes. I throw my arms around his neck and pull his body in.

“I can touch you.” Tears are streaming down my face. “I can finally touch you.”

“Of course you can,” he says. “We’re both in the same place, now.”

“So this is why you had to—“

“Move on?” he asks. “Yes. Though I didn’t realise it until just a few moments before it happened.”

The feeling in my chest explodes once again, and it’s pure unadulterated joy. “Headed to the next life, then?”

“It’s going to be a good one,” he says. “You’re going to be a military veteran, and a doctor, like you almost always are. But this time, I’m going to be a detective. And you and I are going to solve crimes in London.” 

I swallow. “Do we.. do you and I end up together in the end? Happy, and in love?”

“Yes,” he reassures me. “We do. It takes some time to get there, but we definitely do.”

“Good. Thank God. I don’t know if I could make it through another life without loving you.”

“We will always be tethered to one another,” he whispers into my ear. “Our souls are one. They may venture away for a bit, but there is no me without you, and no you without me, and that’s how it’s always been, and always will be.”

“How much time do we have... until we move on?” I ask, a feeling of sudden panic setting in.

“Approximately two and a half minutes, I believe.”

“In that case, I can’t think of any other way I’d like to spend them than…” I reach up to the sides of his face and pull him down, until his lips are just above mine. “Kissing you. That okay?”

He smiles. “Can’t think of anything better, either.” 

And I kiss him, and as our lips fuse together, I can feel our souls fuse together as well, and there has never been anything more beautiful in any universe.

And I can remember them all:

Our arms wrapped around one another in the abandoned islands of East Timor, staring up at the stars and kissing one another’s skin until we sleep. Pressed up against the walls of the Peruvian catacombs, whispering promises into one another’s ears that one day, our time will come. Sprawled out on the tatami floors of my parents’ house in Kyoto, his hand cautiously finding mine as we share our fantasies of running away and seeing the entire world.

And it’s not always easy, and it’s not always painless, but I’ve loved him in each and every one.

I’m kissing him now, and that’s what matters.

As everything begins to fade around us, we cling to one another tightly, and I break the kiss to bury my face into his neck.

He strokes my hair and leans his lips to my ear, lightly kissing it. “John,” he whispers. “I love you.”

“John?” I ask. “Who’s John?”

He laughs. “That’s your name now.”

“Oh,” I say. “And what’s yours?”

“Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.” 

“Strange name,” I remark. 

“Yes. It’s going to be a strange and wonderful life.”

I kiss him again and again and again on the side of his neck. “I love you, Sherlock Holmes,” I whisper.

I can’t stop crying.

“How will I know when I’ve found you?” I ask.

“You’ll just know,” he says. “Don’t worry. Your first words to me are always the same in every universe.” 

He kisses me again on the earlobe, and I remember with perfect clarity exactly what those words are. 

I pull him into me once more, kissing him, and kissing him, and we kiss until there is nothing but a warm, warm light surrounding our bodies.

We kiss until there is nothing and everything left before us.

And all goes quiet.

***

_“Here. Use mine.”_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover] Shiloh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17184857) by [allsovacant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/allsovacant/pseuds/allsovacant)




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